Book II

THE SUMMIT HOUSE MYSTERY

OR

THE EARTHLY PURGATORY

BY

L. DOUGALL

Author of

"Beggars All," "The Madonna of a Day," "The Zeit-Geist," etc.

[Illustration: Logo]

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

NEW YORK and LONDON

1905

COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

[Printed in the United States of America]

_Published, March, 1905_

PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTORY NOTE

"The story's the thing" is a creed to which novel readers are supposed

to give unanimous adherence. Art, literary style, study of character,

and other of the higher, subtler elements of fiction, good as they are

acknowledged to be, must yield first place to "the story," and

afterwards shift for themselves the best way they may. How many

so-called novel readers adhere to this creed is a matter of

question--probably not as many as its exponents believe. Unquestionably

there are two forms of fiction--the one in which art, and style, and

character are pre-eminent, and control the course of the story, and the

one in which "the story's the thing," and often the only thing. But why

should not these two forms of fiction be blended? Why should not the art

of George Eliot or Mr. Meredith be wedded to the thrilling action and

absorbing mystery of Anthony Hope and Sir A. Conan Doyle?

In this story, "The Summit House Mystery," Miss Dougall has illustrated

so well the possibilities of combining an exciting story with the charm

of real literary art, that it must be considered as a model for a better

school of popular fiction. In substance and in form it is unusually

satisfying. The mystery with which it deals is so impenetrable as to

baffle the cleverest reader until the very sentence in which, literally

in a flash of light, the secret is revealed; yet from the beginning the

story progresses steadily, logically, and without straining or

melodramatic claptrap, to the inevitable solution. It is not, in the

ordinary sense, a detective story, altho the two elements of concealment

and search are present. It is not a "love story," but love, of the

noblest order, supplies the cause and the support of the terrible

mystery throughout the book. It is, as one has aptly said, a story of

mystery "into which a soul has been infused." The rare distinction of

its style and the beauty of its language place it far above stories of

its class. A wonderful setting is given, high up on the summit of Deer

Mountain, in Georgia, and the story seems to take on a quiet dignity, as

well as a deeper atmosphere of mystery, from the lofty solitude. Seldom

have the beauties of the mountains, "in all their varying moods of

cloud, and mist, and glorious night," been painted in truer colors. "The

Summit House Mystery" must inevitably set a higher standard for such

novels, and the public will thus gain more than this one good story if

it shall have, as it deserves, an immense popular success.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. A Hut in the Precipice 9

II. The Unwelcome Guest 17

III. A Strange Dismissal 24

IV. The Hostess Jailer 28

V. The Northern Ladies 33

VI. Events on Deer Mountain 39

VII. The Godson Possibility 45

VIII. The Wordless Letters 56

IX. The Spectre in the Forest 67

X. A Skeleton in the Fire 75

XI. The Mysterious 'Dolphus 82

XII. The Secret of the Oak 88

XIII. A Sob in the Dark 98

XIV. The Going Out of Eve 104

XV. The Question of Guilt 109

XVI. A Call for Help 119

XVII. Hermione's Advocate 125

XVIII. A Startling Disclosure 132

XIX. Tangled in the Coil 140

XX. The Terrible Confession 146

XXI. Opening the Past 153

XXII. The Earthly Purgatory 169

XXIII. What 'Dolphus Knows 180

XXIV. The Woman with a Secret 189

XXV. Lost in the Maze 205

XXVI. A Tortured Conscience 217

XXVII. A Hound on the Scent 229

XXVIII. Probing a Deep Wound 238

XXIX. Forged Letters 251

XXX. The Vision in the Hut 266

XXXI. A Flash of Light 289

XXXII. What a Terrier Found 296

XXXIII. The Restoration 307

XXXIV. All That Happened 312

XXXV. Readjustments 323

Book I

The Summit House Mystery

Chapter I

A HUT IN THE PRECIPICE

In the southern part of the Appalachian Mountains the tree-clad ridges

fold and coil about one another. In this wooded wilderness the trend of

each slope, the meandering of each stream, take unlooked-for turnings,

and the valleys cross and twist. It is such a region as we often find in

dreams, where the unexpected bars the way or opens out into falling

vistas down which our souls must speed, chasing some hope or chased by

unknown fears.

On a certain day a man called Neil Durgan passed through the village of

Deer Cove, in the mountains of Northern Georgia. When he had left the

few wooden buildings and the mill round which they clustered, he took a

path by the foaming mill-stream and ascended the mountain of Deer.

For more than a century before the freeing of the slaves, the Durgans

had been one of the proudest and richest families of Georgia. This man

was the present head of the house, sole heir to the loss of all its

lands and wealth. He was growing old now. Disappointment, Poverty, and

Humility walked with him. Yet Joy, the fugitive, peeped at him through

the leafless forest, from the snow-flakes of the dogwood and from the

violets in the moss, laughed at him in the mountain torrent, and wooed

him with the scent of the warming earth. Humility caught and kissed the

fleeting spirit, and led her also in attendance upon the traveller's

weary feet.

Deer Cove is more than two thousand feet in altitude; Deer Mountain

rises a thousand feet above. Half-way up, Durgan came to the cabin of a

negro called Adam. According to the usage of the time, the freedman's

surname was Durgan, because he had been born and bred on the Durgan

estates. Adam was a huge black negro. He and Durgan had not met since

they were boys.

Adam's wife set a good table before the visitor. She was a quadroon,

younger, lithe and attractive. Both stood and watched Durgan eat--Adam

dumb with pleasure, the negress talking at times with such quick rushes

of soft words that attentive listening was necessary.

"Yes, Marse Neil, suh; these ladies as lives up here on Deer, they's

here for their health--they is. Very nice ladies they is, too; but

they's from the North! They don't know how to treat us niggers right

kind as you does, suh! They's allus for sayin' 'please' an' 'thank 'e,'

and 'splaining perjinks to Adam an' me. But ef you can't board with

these ladies, marsa, ther's no place you can live on Deer--no, there

ain't, suh."

Durgan had had his table set before the door, and ate looking at the

chaos of valleys, domes, and peaks which, from this height, was open to

the view. The characteristic blue haze of the region was over all. The

lower valleys in tender leaf had a changeful purple shimmer upon them,

as seen in the peacock's plumage. The sun rained down white light from a

fleecy sky. The tree-tops of the slope immediately beneath them were red

with sap.

After a mood of reflection Durgan said, "You live well. These ladies

must pay you well if you can afford dinners like this."

"Yes, Marse Neil, suh; they pays better than any in these parts. Miss

Hermie, she's got right smart of sense, too, 'bout money. Miss Birdie,

she's more for animals and flowers an' sich; but they pays well, they

does."

"Look me out two good men to work with me in the mine, Adam."

Adam showed his white teeth in respectful joy. "That's all right, suh."

"Of course, as you are working for these ladies, you will look for my

men in your spare time."

"That's all right, suh."

Durgan put down sufficient payment for his food, took up his travelling

satchel, and walked on. From the turn of the rough cart-road on which

the cabin stood the rocky summit was visible, and close below it the

gables of a solitary dwelling.

"A rough perch for northern birds!" said he to himself, and then was

plunged again in his own affairs. The branches, arching above, shut out

all prospect. He plodded on.

The upper side of the mountain was a bald wall of rock. Where, part way

up, the zigzag road abutted on this precipice it met a foot-trail to the

summit, and at the same point an outer ledge of flat rock gave access to

an excavation near at hand in the precipice. A wooden hut with a rude

bench at its door stood on the ledge, the only legacy of a former miner.

Durgan perceived that his new sphere was reached. He rested upon the

bench and looked about him wistfully.

He was a large, well-built man, with patrician cast of feature, brown

skin, and hair that was almost gray. His clothes were beginning to fray

at the edges. They were the clothes of a man of fashion whose pockets

had long been empty. His manner was haughty, but subdued by that subtle

gentleness which failure gives to higher natures. A broken heart, a head

carried high--these evoke compassion which can seldom be expressed.

He could look over the foot-hills to where cloud-shadows were slowly

sailing upon the blue, billowy reaches of the Georgian plains. In that

horizon, dim with sunlight, Durgan had sucked his silver spoon, and

possessed all that pertains to the lust of the eye and the pride of

life. The cruel war had wrapped him and his in its flames. When it was

over, he had sought relief in speculation, and time had brought the

episode of love. He had fought and lost; he had played and lost; he had

married and lost. Out of war and play and love he had brought only

himself and such a coat as is as much part of a man as its fur is part

of an animal.

After a while he unfolded a letter already well worn. He read it for the

last time with the fancy that it was well to end the old life where he

hoped to commence the new one.

The letter was written in New York, and dated a month before. It was

from his wife.

"It is very well for you to say that you would not want money from

me if I came to live in the south with you, but I do not believe

you could earn your own living, and it would ill become my social

position to acknowledge a husband who was out at elbows and working

like a convict. I think, too, that it is cant for you to preach to

me and say that 'it would be well for us to try and do better.' Is

it my fault that you have lost all self-respect, refusing to enter

good society, to interest yourself in the arts and all that belongs

to the spiritual side of life? Is it my fault that a spiritually

minded man has given me the sympathy which you cannot even

understand? I desire that you never again express to me your

thoughts about a friendship which is above your comprehension.

"If your rich cousin will let you delve for him for a pittance I

shall not interfere. I might tell him he could not put his mine

into worse hands! I shall not alter the agreement we made ten years

ago, which is that while you remain at a distance, and refrain from

annoyance, I shall not seek legal separation."

The husband looked with a faint smile at the crest of the Durgans on the

fashionable notepaper, at the handwriting in which a resolute effort at

fashion barely concealed a lack of education. In the diction and

orthography he discerned the work of a second mind, and it was with a

puzzled, as well as a troubled air, that he tore the paper into atoms

and let them flutter over the precipice in the soft breeze. But the

puzzle was beyond his reading, and the trouble he cast into the past.

Whatever good he had deserved at the hands of his wife, it was not in

his nature to feel that Providence dealt too hardly with him. As he rose

to examine his new scene of work, the phrase of the huge negro returned

to his mind, and he muttered to himself, "Yes, suh; that's all right!"

He found a pick and hammer in the shed, and set himself instantly to

break the rock where the vein of mica had already been worked. Weary as

he soon became, he was glad to suppose that, having failed in dealing

with his kind, he must wrestle now only with the solid earth, and in the

peace of the wilderness.

The angels, looking down upon him, smiled; for they know well that the

warfare of the world is only escaped by selfishness, not by

circumstance.

Chapter II

THE UNWELCOME GUEST

The sun set glorious over the peaks of the Cherokee ridges, and their

crimson outline lay dark, like a haven for the silver boat of the

descending moon, when Durgan, satchel in hand, climbed the ascending

foot-trail.

The cart-road evidently reached the summit by further turnings; but this

footpath, wending through close azalea scrub and under trees, emerged

between one gable of the summit house and the higher rocks above it. On

the other three sides of the house its open lands were broad enough.

This had been the dwelling of the former miner. Durgan, already heralded

by the barking of watch-dogs, could hardly pause to look at a place

which would have been his perquisite had it not been bought at a fancy

price by woman's caprice.

The low shingled dwelling, weathered and overgrown by vines, was faced

by a long, open porch. Its lawn was already bordered by a fringe of

crocus flowers. The house was old, but, beyond a group of trees, a new

barn and carriage-house were standing. The fences of garden, field, and

meadow were also new. The whole property bore marks of recent

improvements which betokened wealth and taste.

A prim little lady met Durgan in the porch. Her hair was gray; she wore

a dress of modified fashion. Even the warm glamour of the evening light

and the matchless grace of hanging vines could give but small suggestion

of romance to Miss Smith's neat, angular figure and thin face; but of

her entire goodness Durgan, after the first glance, had never a doubt.

She put on spectacles to read the letter of introduction which he

brought from the owner of Deer Mountain and of the mine. She was

startled by something she read there, but only betrayed her excitement

by a slight trembling, hardly seen.

The letter read, she greeted Durgan in the neat manner of an established

etiquette which, like her accent, savored of a New England education.

"Take a chair, for I guess you're tired. Yes, we bought this land from

General Durgan Blount, and, of course, we've had dealing with him.

That's about the extent of our acquaintance."

She swayed in a light rocking-chair, and for some minutes obviously

thought over the request which the letter contained that she should give

Durgan a temporary home as a paying guest. He employed the time in

looking at books and pictures, which were of no mean quality, but seemed

to have been recently collected.

At last she said, "Come to think of it, I don't see why you shouldn't

stop with us a while. My sister isn't at home just now, but I guess I'll

say 'Yes.' It isn't good for folks to be too much alone. We've a real

comfortable room over the harness-room in the carriage-house. You'll

have to sleep there, as we've no room in the house, and I guess what we

eat will be good enough." A moment's pause and she added, "My sister

won't be quite agreeable, perhaps, not being accustomed----"

"Of course, I quite understand, you're not in the habit of doing such

a----"

"I did not mean that we felt too grand."

Miss Smith made this answer to his interruption with crisp decision, but

as she did not return to the interrupted subject, he was left

uncertain.

While she busied herself for his entertainment, Durgan, surprised into

great contentment, sat watching the darkness gather beyond the low

arches of the porch. The room was warmed, and at that hour lit, by logs

blazing in an open chimney. It was furnished with simple comfort and the

material for pleasant occupations. Glass doors stood open to the mild,

still night. The sweet, cool scent of the living forest wandered in to

meet the fragrance of the burning logs.

There was one uneasy element in Durgan's sense of rest--he dreaded the

advent of the sister who might not be "quite agreeable."

Out of the gloaming, stooping under the tendrils of the vine, a young

woman came quickly and stopped upon the threshold. She seemed a perfect

type of womanhood, lovely and vigorous. One arm was filled with branches

of dogwood bloom, the other hand held in short leash a mastiff. Her

figure, at once lithe and buxom, her rosy and sun-browned face, soft

lips, aquiline nose, and curly hair gave Durgan sincere astonishment,

altho he had formed no expectation. But his attention was quickly

focussed upon an indescribable depth of hope and fear in her eyes.

Before she spoke he had time to notice more consciously the clear brown

skin, crimson-tinted on the round of the cheek, the nose delicately

formed and curved, and the startled terror and pleading look in her sad

brown eyes.

The dog, probably at the suggestion of a nervous movement on the leash,

began to growl, and was silenced by a caress as Durgan introduced

himself and explained his errand.

"It is very late," she said gravely. "It will surely be difficult for

you to find your way down the mountain again."

"Miss Smith has very kindly acceded to my cousin's request." Durgan

spoke in the soft, haughty tone of reserve which was habitual to him.

The girl's tone, quick and subdued, had in it the faint echo of a cry.

"Oh, I don't think you would like to stay here. Oh, I don't think

you----"

Miss Smith came to the door to announce his supper.

"Mr. Durgan is going to stop a while with us, Bertha. It's no use his

having a mile's climb from the Cove to his work every day--at least not

that I know of. I've been fixing up the room over the carriage-house; I

tell him the barns are a sight better built than the house."

It appeared to Durgan that she was reasoning with the younger sister as

a too indulgent mother reasons with a spoilt tyrant of the nursery. The

effort seemed successful.

Without further comment Bertha said, "We bought this old house along

with the ground, but we built the rest. We took great care that they

should be good models for the people here, who are rather in need of

high standards in barns and--other things."

"In many other things," said Durgan. "I have not been familiar with my

own State since the war, and the poverty and sloth I have seen in the

last few days sadly shocked me."

Durgan had not of late been accustomed to kindness from women. It was

years since he had eaten and talked with such content as he did that

evening. If his material comforts were due to the essential motherliness

in Miss Smith's nature, it was Bertha's generous beauty and lively mind

that gave the added touch of delight. Miss Smith swayed in her

rocking-chair, her neat feet tapping the ground, and put in shrewd,

kindly remarks; Bertha discussed the prospects of the mine with

well-bred ease. Durgan assumed that, as is often the case in the

Northern States, the growing wealth of the family had bestowed on the

younger a more liberal education than had fallen to the lot of the

elder. At the hour for retiring he felt for them both equal respect and

equal gratitude.

The stairs to his chamber ran up outside the carriage-house. The room

was pleasant--a rainy-day workroom, containing a divan that had been

converted into a bed. Books, a shaded lamp, even flowers, were there. As

a sick man luxuriates in mere alleviation, as the fugitive basks in

temporary safety, so Durgan, who had resigned himself to the buffets of

fortune, felt unspeakably content with the present prospect of peace.

He read till late, and, putting out what was by then the only light upon

Deer Mountain, he lay long, watching the far blaze of other worlds

through the high casement. To his surprise he heard an almost noiseless

step come up the stairs; then a breathless listening. He had been given

no key, but one was now gently inserted in the lock and turned from

without.

Durgan smiled to himself, but the smile grew cynical.

Chapter III

A STRANGE DISMISSAL

When Durgan woke in the sunshine the door had been unlocked and the key

removed.

The sisters, and the good cheer they offered, were the same at breakfast

as on the former evening; but the incident of the night had disturbed

Durgan's feeling of respect.

Adam and his wife were betimes at their work as day servants. They had,

as commanded, brought two negro laborers for the mine. Durgan shouldered

his pick and marched before his men.

They went by the cart-road, under the arching branches. Suddenly,

through the wood, Bertha appeared, walking alone in the sparkling

morning. It seemed a chance meeting till the negroes had gone on.

Blushing nervously and very grave, she spoke, begging Durgan to find

another lodging. Her voice, as she gave her reason, faltered. "I am

sure that my sister is not strong enough for the extra care."

Durgan said within himself that the reason was false. He stiffened

himself to that dull sense of disappointment to which he was accustomed.

"I can only do as you bid me," said he.

"I am afraid you will need to camp out. Believe me, I am very sorry. My

sister"--again the voice faltered--"is not very strong. She would try to

have visitors for my sake, and so she will not admit that this would be

too much--but----"

Again Durgan was sure that her reason was in some way false. This woman

was so honest that her very lies were transparent.

"And so--and on this account, I must ask you, Mr. Durgan, to be good

enough to--conceal from my sister that I have made this request."

She dropped her eyes in confusion; her face was flushed, her hands

fluttering as she clasped them restlessly; but she was perfectly

resolute.

About her and above the trees were gray. The dogwood alone held out

horizontal sprays--white flowers veined in bright mahogany. Above, the

sky was blue--a gorgeous blue--and, on a gray bough that hung over, this

hue was seen again where the gay bluebird of the south swelled out its

glossy crimson throat in song.

As Durgan looked at this beautiful woman and the wild solitude, he felt

as deeply puzzled as annoyed. General Durgan Blount had well remarked,

as he wrote the letter of introduction, that the presence of a gentleman

of Durgan's age and position would certainly appear to be an advantage

in the precincts of the lonely dwelling.

"May I ask if you have heard anything to my disadvantage?"

"Oh, nothing! It is for your----" She stopped, her distress growing, but

began again very rapidly. "I know it must seem very strange to you; and

living alone as we do, it is a great thing for us not to appear odd or

strange to anyone. And so--that is the reason I ask you to be so good

as----"

She paused, raising her sad eyes for an answering flash of sympathy

which his reticence did not give. It was not Durgan's way to give any

play to feeling in manner or tone.

Then she said impulsively, "I am trusting you. Don't you see I am

trusting you with the secret of my interference? I don't want my sister

to know, and I don't want anyone to know, that I have spoken. Hermie

would be vexed with me, and other people would think it very odd."

"I thank you for trusting me."

He was lifting his hat and moving when she stayed him.

"I hope you believe that I regret this--that I will do all I can to make

your stay on the mountain pleasant for you."

His eyes twinkled. "Pardon me for thinking that you have done all you

can to make it unpleasant for me. Your house is not a good one to

leave."

"Still, I hope you will remain our friend, and I beg"--she flushed

scarlet at her reiteration--"I implore you, when you return for your

things, to give my sister no hint that I have interfered, or to speak of

it to your cousin."

She went back into the woods, her head bowed. Durgan looked after her

with solicitude.

Chapter IV

THE HOSTESS JAILER

There was one other house nearer to the mine than Deer Cove. A small

farm belonging to "mountain whites" lay on the other side, but cut off

from the road by precipice and torrent. Thither in the early evening

Durgan, by steep detour, bent his way, but found his journey useless.

The family was in excess of the house-room, and the food obviously

unclean.

More weary with his work than laborer bred to toil can ever be, again in

the gloaming he climbed to the summit of Deer. He began the ascent with

the intention of taking his possessions to the miserable inn at Deer

Cove, but on his way reflected that one night more could make little

difference to the comfort of the sisters. He would speak to Bertha

apart, and ask if he might remain till morning.

The sisters were found together, and Durgan was dumb. Until he was

confronted with evidence that Bertha had really given no hint to her

sister, he had not realized that, in cancelling the arrangement, much

would devolve on his own tact and readiness of excuse. He grew impatient

of the mystery, ate the supper that Miss Smith's careful housewifery had

prepared, and having no explanation to offer, accepted the early

retirement which her compassion for his evident weariness proposed. As

on the night before, Bertha offered no opposition.

The work had broken at a touch Durgan's long habit of insomnia. He slept

soon and soundly.

Waking in the utter silence of the mountain dawn, his brain proceeded to

fresh activities. He reviewed the events of the previous night and

morning with more impartial good-nature. From the picture of Miss

Smith's motherly age, shrewd wit, equable temper, and solid virtues, he

turned to the healthful beauty of the younger sister. He saw again the

interview on the road. How transparent her blushes! How deep the hope

and terror in her eyes! How false the ring of her tone when she murmured

her ostensible excuse! Surely this was a girl who had been sore driven

before she lied or asked secrecy of a stranger!

He remembered that the first night someone had locked him in. A caged

feeling roused him to see if he were again a prisoner. He rose, tried

the door, and it opened.

Dark ruby fire of the dawn was kindling behind the eastern peaks. Dark

as negroes' hair lay the heads and shoulders of all the couchant hills.

Their sides were shrouded in moving mists; the valleys were lost; only

in one streak of sky above the ruby dawn had the stars begun to fail.

He saw a woman's figure crouching on the porch of the dwelling-house.

The wind was moaning.

The woman was sitting on the low flooring of the porch, her feet on the

ground, her elbows on her knees, her head held forward, her whole

attitude indicative of watching. He thought she slept at her post or

else the wind and darkness covered his slight movement of the door.

Either someone was in great need of compassion, perhaps help, or he was

outraged by a surveillance which merited displeasure. He awaited the

swift daybreak of the region. Every moment light increased visibly.

When the mists, like white sea-horses, were seen romping down the

highways of the valleys; when the tree-tops were seen tossing and the

eastern sky was fleeced with pink, as if the petals of some gigantic

rose were shaken out, Durgan went across the grass and confronted Bertha

before she could retire.

With a sudden impulse of fear she put her finger to her lips; then,

ashamed, sought to cancel the gesture. She had not changed her gown from

the evening before, but was wrapped in furs.

"Last night you locked me in; to-night you watch my door. What is the

matter? Are you afraid of me?" He had noticed her abortive signal; his

customary tones met any need for quiet of which he could conceive.

"You!" Her lips formed the word. She seemed confounded by his

suddenness. "You!"

He gained no idea from the repeated monosyllable.

"I will pack up my traps and go at once, rather than rob you of further

sleep. Perhaps you will kindly make my excuses to your sister." He was

turning, but added, "I evidently owe you an apology for remaining last

night. I hope you understand that I had no excuse to give your

sister--none, at least, that would not have been too true to suit you or

too untrue to suit me."

She made an imperious gesture; she spoke so low that he wondered at the

power of command in her tone. "Go back and take your sleep out--you

need it. Come to breakfast without saying that you have seen me. I have

no explanation. I have nothing to say--except--" she lifted a weary

face--"except that I hoped you were too tired to be wakeful."

His incredulity was overcome by pity. "Can I do you no service?"

She shook her head. "I have already asked far too much." Her voice sank

as she spoke.

"We are neighbors, and I think we must be friends. You are evidently in

need of help."

"From heaven--yes. But from you only what I have said."

Chapter V

THE NORTHERN LADIES

Durgan furnished the wooden hut that stood on the ledge of the cliff

between the road and the mine. Adam's wife baked his bread and made his

bed. Durgan fell into the fanciful habit of calling her "Eve."

"Oh, Marse Neil, honey; Adam an' Eve they was white folks. Thought you'd

have known your Bible better 'an us pore niggers, an' we knows that

much, sure 'nough--yes, we does, suh."

When Eve spoke her words came in a multitude, soft and quick.

"Wasn't mighty surprised you didn't stop with those Northern ladies.

Very nice ladies they is, but they's the mightiest 'ticlar 'bout their

house, an' the workin'est folks I ever did see. 'Tain't a sign o' good

fam'ly--no, Marse Neil, suh--gettin' up near sun-up in the mornin', and

allers a-doin'. 'Tain't like quality, an' you couldn't never have

stopped. But they's powerful nice ladies, Miss Hermie an' Miss Birdie,

an' I don't go to say a word against them, no, suh."

Durgan watched to see if anyone else had a word to say against these

ladies. From the loungers of Deer Cove, from the country folk who

ascended Deer to sell their produce at the summit house, from the very

children who trooped up the road with field flowers and pet animals, he

heard the same testimony. In the whole countryside the sisters had the

reputation of being gentle and just. Too methodical and thrifty to

appear quite liberal in the eyes of the shiftless, too unconscious of

the distinction of color to appear quite genteel, they were yet held in

favor, and were to the whole region a source of kindly interest and

guileless extortion. No other strangeness was attributed to them than

that which "being from the North" implied.

Young Blount, the son of the landowner, soon rode over to see his

cousin. The Blounts were one of the few rich Southern families who,

owning a line of merchant ships, had not lost the source of their wealth

in the war. They spent part of their time in this mountain region, of

which a large area was their own.

The old General had not changed with the times, but the new epoch had

stamped the son with a sense of responsibility for the humanity at his

gates which his slave-owning forefathers had never known. He was twenty

years younger than Durgan. Having looked upon a devastated land from his

schoolroom windows, he had never acquired the patrician manner. He was

affable and serious.

When arrived at Durgan's camp he tied his beautiful horse to a tree, and

remained for the night. The two sat on the open rock by a fire of logs.

Before darkness fell the visitor had pointed out every village, hamlet,

and cabin which lay within the wide prospect which they overlooked.

The inhabitants of this land were, each for his respective station,

poor, most of them miserably poor and thriftless. Blount took an

interest in each individual. He was a gossip as confirmed as any

club-man or idle dowager; but the objects of his interest were not his

equals, and their benefit was the end he held in view.

The greenery of the valleys was rising like a tide upon slopes, and

merging its verdure in the flush of flowing sap and ruddy buds which

colored the upland forest; but, far and near, the highest hills still

held up their gray woodlands to the frosty skies.

After listening to a long chronicle of his humbler neighbors, Durgan

held out his pipe for a moment, and said casually--

"And the Northern ladies?"

"Ah, yes; despite the Northern flavor, they are a godsend to the place,

if you will! Our people come from far and near to see their new-fangled

barn, and carriage-house, and kitchen stoves. It's as elevating to our

mountaineers"--he gave a laugh--"as the summer hotels they are building

in the Tennessee Mountains or at Nashville are to the people of those

parts. A new idea, an object-lesson. Most useful for children and fools.

Our mountain whites are obstinate as mules. They think they know

everything because they have never seen anything to arouse their

curiosity. You can talk a new notion into a pig's head sooner than into

them; but after they have seen an object, fingered it, and talked it

over for a year or two, they imagine that it had its origin in their own

minds. It was a good enough day for us when these ladies came here; and

then, they put some money into circulation."

Durgan, with little further inquiry, soon heard all that gossip had to

tell.

Miss Bertha, he said, had been delicate. After some years of travel in

Europe, a high altitude in a mild climate, and quiet, had been

prescribed. A chance of travel had brought them to this place, and the

invalid's fancy had fixed itself on this site. Miss Smith, he said, was

rather niggardly, but she had recognized that it was worth while to

humor her sister's fancy by buying the place.

"She is fanciful, then?"

"I did not mean to imply that. You see, there are not many houses in the

whole mountain range at this altitude to choose from, and this

neighborhood is quiet and safe. The choice was not unnatural, but I

spoke of it being 'humored' because the General put on a fancy price. He

likes to rook a Northerner, and it was not to his interest to separate

the house from the mine."

"You would say, then, that they are not fanciful or--eccentric in any

way?"

"I should rather say that they have displayed great sense and

moderation, never raising a suggestion of their Northern sympathies.

They ride about and administer charity in a judicious way. They have

even won over the General. Both he and I have a great respect for them.

Their financial affairs are in the hands of an excellent firm of New

York lawyers. They have friends who keep up a very regular

correspondence. They are both fine women. It is refreshing to come

across a little genuine culture in these wilds. I enjoy them every time

I call."

In harmony with this last statement, young Blount called at the summit

house the next morning, and took his noonday meal with the sisters. When

he was riding down the mountain road again he called out, on passing the

mine:

"Oh, Neil Durgan--say--why did you leave those quarters? Miss Smith says

she gave you leave to stop. Are you anchoriting?"

The unwilling anchorite took comfort in the thought that his discomfort

and his silence were offered to, and accepted by, a woman who, for some

inscrutable reason, seemed to stand in need of them.

"None so poor but that he has something to give!" he muttered.

Chapter VI

EVENTS ON DEER MOUNTAIN

The sisters made all their expeditions on horseback, and, on the upward

ride, the horses were commonly breathed on the zigzag of the road which

abutted on the mine. Miss Smith, who was disposed to be offended by

Durgan's quick change of residence, was dry and formal when he greeted

them; but Bertha bent kind glances upon him, and always made time to

chat. Her manner to men had the complete frankness and dignity which is

more usually acquired by older women; and she always appeared to be on

perfectly open terms with her sister. Her talk was always replete with

interest in the passing events of Deer.

For the first week that Durgan delved he supposed that there were no

events on Deer Mountain. Bertha aided him to discover them. She had

fraternized closely with her solitudes, not only by directing all things

concerning the garden, fields, meadows, and live-stock of the little

summit farm, but also by extending her love and sympathy to the whole

mountain of Deer and to all the changes in the splendid panorama round

about.

"'Nothing happens!'" cried she, playfully, echoing Durgan. "Open your

eyes, Master Miner, lest by burrowing you become a veritable mole! Can

you only recognize the thrill of events when they are printed in a

vulgar journal?"

So Durgan's observation was stimulated.

First, there were the events of the weather--what Bertha called the

"scene-shifting."

To-day the veil of blue air would be so thin that, in a radius of many

miles, the depth of each gorge, the molding of each peak, was so clear

that the covering forest would be revealed like a carpet of fern, each

tree a distinct frond when the eye focussed upon it. The rocky

precipices would declare each cave and crevice in sharply outlined

shadow, and emerald forms far off would look so near that house and

fence and wandering paths were seen. At such an hour the Cherokee ridges

would stand like the great blue-crested waves of ocean, and the "Great

Smokies" be like clouds, turquoise-tinted, on the northern horizon.

The next day the azure mists that lay always on the Georgian plain would

have crept, embracing the very spurs of Deer, hiding the modeling of

even the adjacent mountains as with a luminous gauze. Then only a screen

of mountainous outline could be seen, standing flat against emptiness,

of uniform tint, colored like a blue-jay's wing.

Again there was nothing but vapor to be seen, here towering black, here

moving fringed with glory and lit within. May showers winged their

silver way among the mist-clouds and cleft a passing chasm for the sun.

Or again, following or preceding thunder, there would be an almost

terrible clearness of the sun, and big cloud-shadows would flap from

range to range like huge black bats with sharply outlined wings.

Secondly, apart from the weather, came startling events in the sphere of

what Bertha called "the crops." The term did not relate chiefly to her

cultivated land, but to all the successive forms of vegetation upon

Deer.

The joy of the opening leaf rose nearer the mountain-top. Already, about

Deer Cove, the trees held out a delicate fretwork of tiny leaves between

earth and sky, and the under thickets were tipped at every point with

silver-green. All along the village street a double row of marsh maples

stood, their roots drinking at the millstream. The marsh maple differs

from its patient sisters, who are glorified by autumn, and, like

Passion in the house of the Interpreter, insists upon having its good

things early. These now dressed themselves gorgeously in leaflets of

crimson and pink. For a day or two this bright display, seen from afar

through the branches that surrounded Durgan's mine, looked like a garden

of tulips. Then his landscape narrowed; his own trees opened their

leaves. There were days of warm, quick rain. Suddenly the gray forest

was glorious with green; serried ranks of azure stars stood out in every

bank of moss, and the gray earth was pied with dandelion, heart's-ease,

and violet.

Said Durgan, as the sisters rode by, "Summer passed me in the night,

dripping and bedraggled. She was going on to you with leaps and bounds."

"'Dripping,' but not 'bedraggled,'" corrected Bertha, shaking the mist

out of her riding-gloves.

"Somewhat bedraggled," insisted Durgan. "Her skirts of wild flowers and

meadow grass are already too long."

But more exciting still were the events of animal life in the purlieus

of Deer. The beetles were rolling their mud-balls on the earth; the

tadpoles in the mountain ponds were putting forth feet, and the

squirrels and birds were arranging their nurseries in different nooks of

the greenery above. The polecats prowled boldly to find provender for

their wives and little ones. A coon and its cubs were seen. But more

interesting than these, because more fully interpreted, were the members

of the baby farm over which Bertha reigned. She had calves and kids,

litters of pigs and litters of pups, a nest of gray squirrels, nests of

birds, and the kit of a wildcat, which a hunter had brought her. This

last, a small, whiskered thing, gray as a fox and striped like a tiger,

had only just opened its eyes, and must needs be fed from Bertha's hand.

"I am only the grandmother of the others, for they have their own

parents," said she; "but I seem to be this one's mother, for it cries

continually when I leave it."

For some weeks she carried the kit with her everywhere, even when

riding; it curled contentedly in a bag on her lap, and bid fair to be

tame.

If Bertha rode out twice a day she paused four times by the mine to

exhibit the growing tameness of her pet, or to recount fresh instances

of the sagacity or prowess displayed by child or parent in her

menagerie.

Durgan went up often to inspect the infant prodigies, and advise (altho

he knew nothing) about their upbringing.

Durgan's own work lay exclusively in the "mineral kingdom," and he

advanced from ignorance to some degree of skill in auguring from the

bowels of the rock. Each day's work brought its keen daily interest,

each night's sleep its quota of health and increasing cheerfulness.

Chapter VII

THE GODSON POSSIBILITY

When young Blount paid his next visit Durgan was in a mood better to

appreciate his budget of gossip. He even contributed to it.

Adam had beaten his wife, and with good cause. Durgan had himself seen a

strange nigger eating Adam's dinner, waited upon by Adam's wife. He

found time to explain to his interested cousin that the nigger was both

sickly and flashy--a mulatto, consumptive and dandified.

"The worst sort of trash. What could have brought him here? There is no

such fellow belonging to the county, I'll swear."

"Adam's wife is not Eve, after all, I think. She can only be Lilith; and

I wish the fates would change her for a superior." Durgan spoke

musingly.

"At least I hope she'll have more sense than to take a tramping scamp

nigger like that to the summit house," said Blount. "He's sure to be a

thief."

"I'd chastise her myself if she did," said Durgan, smoking lazily.

"Ah, I'm glad you feel that way, for those ladies are a real benefit to

the neighborhood, and, to tell the truth, it was on their account I came

to you now. The General sent me."

Durgan smoked on. They were sitting late at the door of the hut.

Darkness was falling like a mantle over all that lay below their

precipice.

Blount began again. "These ladies from the North can't realize how

little our mountain whites know of class distinctions. If you have only

seen one thing, how can you appreciate the difference between that and

another? The mountain men have lived in these hills for generations,

knowing only themselves. You have to be born and bred in the brier bush

to understand their ignorance and the self-importance that underlies

their passive behavior."

"So I have heard."

"But Miss Bertha will be getting herself proposed to--indeed she will.

What we are afraid of is that, on that, both sisters will be as angry

and unsettled as birds whose nest has been disturbed, and that they will

leave the place."

Durgan quite enjoyed his own thrill of curiosity. "Who?"

"The Godsons, father and son--gardeners, you know--have been laying out

a new orchard for the ladies. Young Godson is as fine a fellow as we

have at the Cove; and Miss Bertha has been lending him books, helping to

some education, you know."

"Yes; I have seen them passing--men with blue eyes and rather spiritual

faces--father gray, son light brown?"

"Just so. Fine men if they could have had a chance to look over the

hedge of their own potato plot. Miss Bertha has made a protégé of the

son. Nothing could be more kind and proper, for she has distinction of

manner which could never be misunderstood except by the ignorant. In

this case it is doing mischief. The General thought I had better mention

it to you."

"Why to me?"

"Well, we're trying to work up this region. If these ladies were to

leave, it would be a distinct loss. If they stay, their friends will

visit them; there is a spell about the beauty of the place; people with

means always return."

"Have they friends?"

Durgan in lazy manner asked a question he had asked two weeks before;

the answer was the same. "Very regular correspondence, I understand."

"Is it the money young Godson aspires to?"

"I am inclined to think it may be love, which is worse; it would create

much more feeling on both sides, for they are women of culture and

refinement. That is why we thought you might be willing to warn her."

Durgan mused. He was convinced that the story of the sisters and their

solitude was not the simple reading that his cousins supposed; convinced

also that what his cousin called their "culture and refinement" was of a

higher cast, because based on higher ethical standards, than the

Blounts, father or son, would be likely to understand.

"The affair is not at all in my line." Durgan spoke with haughty

indolence. "Why choose me to interfere?"

"But I assure you young Godson is going ahead. I tell you I positively

heard his father chaffing him about her in the post-office; all the men

were about."

"That is intolerable," said Durgan, sternly. "What did you do?"

"It is not as if these men were not given to humorous nonsense between

themselves. I could only assume it to be nonsense."

"That would make it more sufferable."

"I should only have injured my own popularity, and they would have held

on their own way. And, after all, if ladies leave their family and

choose to live unprotected except by their dogs, it amounts to saying to

us and to all that they are able to protect themselves. And," added

Blount, "if they knew of this fellow's folly they could protect

themselves. The General would ride over any afternoon; but neither he

nor I am on terms to broach so delicate a subject."

The answer to Durgan's question, "Why I?" was obviously, "There is no

one else." He felt disposed to consider the reason inconclusive till,

lying awake that night, he had watched many stars set, one by one, over

the purple heights. Thus pondering, he admitted that he was already in a

measure Bertha's protector. However inexplicable the circumstance which

had given him this office, he could not rid himself of its

responsibility. He did not greatly blame young Blount's lack of chivalry

in silently hearing the girl's name taken in vain. Still less did he use

the word "duty" of his own intention. He only grew more conscious that,

forlorn as his present state was, he had stumbled into a useful

relation to this radiant and kindly fellow-creature.

When the next day was declining and Durgan, having dismissed his

negroes, was preparing his evening meal, he heard Bertha's step on the

narrow trail that, hidden in rocks and shrubs, led from the summit. She

paused on a ledge that overlooked his platform, and, holding with one

arm to a young fir tree, lowered a basket on the crook of her mountain

staff. Framed in a thicket of silver azalea buds, strong and beautiful

as a sylvan nymph, she looked down at him, dangling her burden and

laughing.

"Pudding!" said she in oracular tone.

"For me?"

"Pie!" said she.

He lifted a vain hand for what was still above his reach.

Then she lowered the staff with an air of resigned benevolence.

"Pudding and pie. But you don't deserve them, for you were too proud to

come to supper, even when I invited you."

"You must remember that to be worthy of my hire I grow stiff by

sundown."

She was looking at him now with grave attention. "Have you got a

looking-glass?" she asked.

He raised his eyebrows in whimsical alarm.

"If not, you may not have observed how very thin you are growing. Do not

kill yourself for hire."

"I shall batten on pudding."

She was retracing her steps when he recalled her. "Will you pardon a

word of warning?"

She instantly descended the remainder of the path. It led her round a

clump of shrubs, and when he met her at its foot he was startled at the

change the moment's suspense had worked. She now wore the face of terror

he had seen when he caught her guarding his door in the April dawn.

So surprised was he that his speech halted.

She was probably not at all aware of her pallor or dilated eyes. "I am

not alarmed," she said. "What is it?" But her breath came quick.

"I must apologize for what may seem an impertinence. I had a little

daughter once, and I sometimes think if she had lived she would have

looked like you--let that be my excuse."

"Thank you, indeed; but what----" She almost tapped her foot in strained

impatience.

Then he told her, in guarded terms, that someone had suggested that

young Godson did not understand his inferior position.

The look of health and carelessness at once returned to her cheek and

eye. "Does that matter?" she asked. "Living in an isolated place as we

do, it is desirable to cultivate friendly relations with one's kind."

It now occurred to him for the first time that for some reason she might

be willing to marry below her station. The pathos of her youthful

loneliness, even with that additional haunting distress of which he had

evidence, lent color to the new idea.

"Godson is a very fine young fellow; if he can obtain education he will

be most intelligent. He is manly and handsome----"

"But?" she asked.

"I am perhaps turning busybody in my old age. I thought I saw a

difficulty like a snake in your path. If I was mistaken, forgive."

"What sort of venom did you fear?"

"Presumptuous love."

She stood for half a minute, her face blank with astonishment; then her

cheeks flamed; but immediately the look of vital interest died out.

"Truly, I never thought of that." She bit her lip in meditation.

He essayed to speak, but she held up her hand.

"I do not want to know your evidence. I know you would not have spoken

unless there was need. Only tell me what I must do."

If Durgan a minute before had felt rueful with regard to his

interference, he was now even more unprepared to meet its successful

issue.

While he hesitated, she began a quick, practical statement of her case.

"I do not want to estrange any friend, however humble. I stand in need

of human friends, as well as of my animals."

"For protection?"

The question came naturally from him; but the moment it was uttered he

perceived that she shrank slightly, as if he had broken his compact of

silence.

"No; not for protection, but to keep me human. My sister has less need

for friends; her religion is everything to her, and she loves her

housekeeping. But with me it is different; I must get my mind freshened

by every human I come across, and these men have work at our place for a

month to come. I could make short work of familiarity when it came from

men who know better, but these cannot conceive that anyone is above

them, and so could not see the justice of reproof. I do not wish to hurt

them, and I dare not make them my enemies. Tell me what to do."

"If you knew me better, you would not expect me to guide you. I have

made too many mistakes of my own. My misfortunes are all my own fault."

"Ah, it is only the saints who say that; commoners blame the fates or

their fellows."

Durgan laughed in sudden surprise. "It is the first time I have been

proposed for such a society."

"You have been very kind to me," she added impulsively; "I never

expected to find so good a friend."

He wondered why she should not expect to find friends, but turned his

mind perforce to her present problem.

"If you could think what it has been in your dealing with young

Godson--what avoidable touch of graciousness has set his heart on fire,

you might----"

"Oh!" she cried, "I have done nothing; I have only forgotten--forgotten

that for most people 'love' and 'marriage' are interesting words. They

have no interest for me." As usual, she regretted an impulsive

confession as soon as she perceived it. "I only mean that I have no

intention of marrying--or rather, that I intend not to marry."

"Such resolutions are sometimes broken."

"With me that is impossible." Her manner was growing more remote.

Durgan had not a prying mind, yet he found his thought full of

questions. The more closely he observed the sisters, the less was he

able to imagine an explanation of what he saw and heard. Bertha's was a

larger intellectual outlook than her sister's, and it might seem she

would weary of her companion; but, on the contrary, there was the

closest comradeship. Miss Smith managed the house solely for Bertha's

welfare; but the petted child was not spoiled, and made every return of

unselfish devotion.

Chapter VIII

THE WORDLESS LETTERS

Close around the little village of Deer Cove, three mountain steeps

looked down in everlasting peace; two upland valleys descended to the

village, and held on their fertile slopes many small farms and hamlets.

The houses of men employed in the saw-mill, which had created the

village, lay within a nearer circle.

Of all this district the post-office at Deer Cove was the centre. The

mill belonged to the Durgan Blounts, whose summer residence lay at some

distance on the one road which threaded the descending ravine to the

county town of Hilyard. All substance and knowledge which came to Deer

Cove was hauled up this long, winding road from the unseen town, and

halted at the post-office, which was also the general store and tavern.

Thither the mill-hands, and an ever-changing group of poor whites,

repaired for all refreshment of body and mind.

The rush of the stream, the whirr of the mill, the sigh of the

wind-swept woods, the never-silent tinkling from the herds that roam

the forests--these sounds mingled always with the constant talk that

went on in the post-office. Here news of the outer world met with scant

attention; but things concerning the region were discussed, weighed, and

measured by the standard of the place. The wealth of a housekeeper was

gauged by the goods he received direct from Hilyard and further markets,

and his social importance by the number of his letters. A steady

correspondence proved stability of connection and character; a telegram

conferred distinction.

In the post-office young Blount, or even the magnificent old General

himself, would not scruple to lounge for an hour at mail time,

exchanging greetings with all who came thither. Durgan came of stiffer

stuff; he could not unbend. He was also conscious that, as he never

received letters, and as his lost lands were here little known, it was

only the reflected importance of his cousins that kept him from being

reckoned a "no account" person, and suffering the natural rudeness meted

out to such unfortunates. He preferred to rely upon Adam to bring him

his paper and such news as the village afforded. Adam went to the post

every evening for Miss Smith.

There came a week of rain. The road to Hilyard was washed away by the

first storm. The mail accumulated there, and when at last it could be

brought to Deer, it was still raining. Durgan's cutting was flooded.

Unable to work, he had paid a visit to his cousins, and returned one

evening, through a thick cloud which clothed Deer like a cerement, to

find Adam in the hut by the mine, seated before a hot fire.

In the light of the dancing flame, the big black man, all his clothes

and hair dripping and glistening, was indeed a strange picture. He was

wholly intent upon a row of papers and letters, which from time to time

he moved carefully and turned before the blaze.

"It's all right, suh. I only clean done forgot to put the ladies'

lettahs in de rubber bag they give me. It's a debble of a rain to-night,

suh; it soak through all I hab, and there's a powerful lot of lettahs

to-night, suh; a whole week o' lettahs, Marse Neil, so there is."

Durgan looked down at a goodly assortment of mail matter--newspapers,

missionary records, magazines, business letters from well-known stores.

In the warmest place was a row of private letters. Adam's big hands

hovered over these with awesome care.

"They's the lettahs the ladies is most perjink about, allus." Adam

spoke proud of his own powers of distinction. "I'se not worked for 'em

so long, suh, widout bein' able to know their 'ticlarities."

"I'm proud of you, Adam." Durgan went out into the mist again and sat on

a ledge of rock.

It was still daylight, but the thick mantle of cloud was gray in its

depths, toning the light to dusk. Within the circle which the mist left

visible, the jeweled verdure showed all its detail as through a conclave

lens.

It was the hour at which Adam's wife usually came to set Durgan's hut in

order. Through the ghostly folds of cloud she now appeared like a

beautiful animal, cowering yet nimble, swift and silent, frightened at

the loss of all things beyond the short limit of sight, the very

pressing nearness of the unknown around the known. Framed in the

magnified detail of branch and bole and dewy leaves, Durgan saw her

arrive and pause with involuntary stealth in the fire-glow from the door

of the hut.

Eve did not see Durgan. As a dog, and especially a female dog, can

worship a master, so Eve worshipped Durgan. When she fawned upon him all

her attitudes were winsome, her bright eyes soft, and a gentle play of

humor was in her features. Despite his studied indifference and

contempt, he had never before seen an evil look upon her face, but now

with malicious shrewdness she was observing her unconscious husband.

Suddenly Adam, without turning, uttered a short yell of terror.

Durgan sprang and entered with the woman.

Adam rose from his stooping position--his jaw dropped, his teeth

chattering. "As I'm alive, suh, the lettahs they come open of

themselves, sittin' right here before the fire; an' they was so soppin'

I jest took the inside out to get it dry. As I'm alive, Marse Neil, suh;

the debble's in this thing. 'Tain't nowise any person but the debble as

would send ladies--very nice ladies, too--lettahs like this, with no

writin' on 'em; that's the debble all right, suh, sure enough."

Durgan's gaze had fixed itself involuntarily on the sheets the man had

dropped. The envelopes which had purported to hold letters of private

friendship had, in truth, held blank paper.

Assured that such was the fact, however strange, Durgan sought some

words which might quiet the terrified Adam and efface the circumstance

from Eve's frivolous mind. He could trust Adam, when quiet enough, to

obey a command of secrecy; the negress must be beguiled.

But she was too quick for him. She was now watching his eyes, reading

there part of his interpretation, and with half-animal instinct,

perceiving that he desired to hush the matter, thought to make common

cause with him.

"You's a sure enough convic' now, Adam, chil'; an' I'd like to know

who's to be s'portin' o' me when you's workin' out your time in chains.

Is you so ignorant, chil', as not to know that it's a heap an' a lot wus

to read these letters than the sort as has writin' all ovah?"

The negro's terrified attitude showed some relief. "I didn't know as

there was a sort o' lettah that had no writin' on, honey. Is you sure o'

that, honey? I thought these lettahs must be a sure enough work o' the

debble."

"Sure as I'm a born nigger, there is lettahs o' that sort; an' it's

hangin', or somethin' wus, to open 'em. Oh, Adam, it's a powerful

hangin' crime; an' if you's cotched in this business, what'll come to

me?"

The woman paused to wipe an eye, then----

"I tell you, Adam, your on'y chance o' takin' care o' me any more is

nebber so much as to speak o' these lettahs down to Deer or any other

place. Because no gen'leman or lady or decen' nigger would ever so much

as say that there was this sort o' lettah--'tain't perlite, 'cause it's

on'y the great folks, an' the rich, an' the eddicated, as gets 'em.

Isn't that gospel truth, Marse Neil, suh?"

Durgan was listening, intent on laying a trap for the wife. He gave no

sign.

But Adam, honest soul, too unsuspicious to wait for Durgan's

corroboration, spoke with steadily returning confidence. "Sure as I'm

stan'in' here, Marse Neil, suh, these lettahs opened themselves--like

that yaller flower that comes open of itself in the evenin', suh; an'

takin' of them out, I only had the contention, suh, o' dryin' the

insides of 'em; for I can't read the sort o' lettah that's written all

ovah--only the big print in the Testament; an' the min'ster that learned

me, he'll tell you the same."

Eve's voice rose in the soft climax of triumph. "An' that's jest the

reason, Adam, chil', that readin' o' these lettahs is hangin', an'

workin' in chains, an' States prison, an' whippin'--all that jest 'cause

niggers like you an' me can't read the other kind." Eve was getting

beyond her depth.

"You've learned me somethin' this very hour, honey," said Adam kindly,

"for I didn't know before sure enough there was this sort o' lettah; but

you degogerate now, honey, for if it's hangin', it can't be work in

chains, an' if they can't prove I can read other sort o' lettah, it's

mighty powerful sure they can't prove I can read these. The debble

himself can't prove that."

Durgan had sealing-wax with which he fastened his samples of mica for

the post. He put the blank pages back in the envelopes and fastened them

with his own seal. Telling Adam to explain only that the flaps had come

open in wet, he dismissed him. He sat watching the negress sternly, and

she grew less confident.

"Us pore slave niggers don't know nothin', Marse Neil, suh."

"How old are you?" He spoke as beginning a judicial inquiry.

"Us pore slave niggers don't know how old we is. I's gettin' an old

woman--I's powerful old. I wus crawlin' out an' aroun' 'fore the

'mancipation. Ole Marse Durgan, he jest naturally licked me hisself one

day when I crawled 'fore his hoss in the quarters. That's what my mammy

told me. We's all Durgans--Adam's folks an' mine."

"You are no Durgan nigger. I know you. We bought you and your mother out

of bad hands." Durgan spoke roughly, but in himself he said: "Alas, who

was responsible for this creature, sly and soulless? Not herself or

those of her race!"

"Have you seen letters with no writing on them before?"

"Why should a pore nigger know anythin' 'bout such lettahs? If you'll

tell me how God A'mighty made the first nigger, I'll tell you as well

why these ladies gets lettahs stuffed like that, an' no sooner--an'

that's gospel truth, Marse Neil, suh. I's got nothin' to do with white

folks' lettahs."

He was sure now that she knew no more than what she had just seen, and

had drawn no inference.

She gave way to tears, realizing that he did not approve of the address

with which she had managed Adam.

"Marse Neil, Adam's a powerful low down nigger, Adam is. He's a no

account darkie, is Adam. You know yourself, suh, how he laid on to me

t'other night."

"If he had let you go off with a thieving yellow coon like that other

nigger, you might say Adam was unkind--kindest thing he could do to beat

you!"

She was so pretty she could not believe any man would really side with

her husband against her. "Oh, yes, Marse Neil, suh; I don't go for to

say as a darkie shouldn't beat his wife--any decen' Durgan nigger would,

suh; but the thing that's low down, an' dreffle mean, an' no account

'bout Adam is that he don't know when to stop. Lickin'--that's all

right, suh; but when a nigger goes on so long, an' me yellin' on him all

the time--oh, Adam, he's a low down feller an' dreffle mean."

"You did more yelling than he did beating. He was crying all the time. I

don't believe he hurt you--but go on."

Her tears were unfeigned: she cared only to regain Durgan's good-will.

"Go on with what, suh?"

"With what you were telling me."

There had certainly been no sequence discernible.

"Well, marsa, a poor girl's like me don't go for to tell lies for

nothin'. Nex' time Adam holds a stick over me, I's got the States prison

to hold over him. An' you's mistaken, marsa, honey, in sayin' as he

didn't maul me black an' blue, for he did, suh--not that it wasn't right

an' just this time, as you say so, marsa; but for nex' time I mus' have

a way for to 'scuse myself to him. So you won't go for to tell him it

isn't hangin', will you, marsa, honey, suh?"

The softness and assumed penitence of the low wail with which she ended

made Durgan laugh aloud. "Look here. Look me straight in the face!"

She could do that very well, raising her soft, doe-like eyes to his,

then fringing them with her lashes as an accomplished beauty might.

Durgan was so angry with her on Adam's account, that he forgot that his

first object was to secure her silence.

"You've got a good husband and a good home. If you ar'n't good to Adam

after this, I'll despise you. Do you understand?"

"Don't speak to me so sharp, marsa." There was already a little edge of

malice in the velvet of her voice.

"Now, about these letters--if I catch you ever speaking of them again,

I'll tell Adam you've lied to him, and why. I'll tell him all about you,

and he'll never trust you again. Do you understand?"

"An' if I don't tell nothin' you ain't disposed on, Marse Neil, honey?"

"Then I'll be kind to you, and let Adam think you're better than you

are."

But the negress, turning to her work in the hut, no longer moved about

him with liquid eyes and joyful steps, as a happy spaniel does. Beneath

her calmer demeanor he saw the shade of sullenness, and still heard the

edge of malice in her voice.

"I have been a fool," thought he. "She would have managed better in my

place." Then he dismissed her from his thoughts.

Chapter IX

THE SPECTRE IN THE FOREST

The letters Durgan resealed had each borne a different handwriting; they

had not all come from New York. The sheets could hardly have been

covered with invisible ink, having been subjected to both water and fire

with no result. These, apparently, were the letters which came to the

sisters with marked regularity.

"These ladies are hiding," said Durgan to himself. "This is a device of

their New York lawyers to save them from remark." He was unable to

associate trickery with the sisters.

In considering Bertha's strong repudiation of future marriage, he began

to suppose that she might be already unhappily married and hiding from

some villain who held her in legal control. But, in that case, why was

she more at ease when riding than at home, and why did she betray fear

of some danger close at hand?

With nightfall the rain-cloud sank down, and the moon, floating above

in an empty sky, showed clear on the mountain-tops. The rock wall above

and below Durgan's camp glistened with silver facets, and the wet forest

all about shimmered with reflected light.

But, beautiful as was the shining island of Deer in its close converse

with the queen of night, it was not so strange a sight as the upper

moon-lit levels of the vast cloud which was floating a hundred feet

below.

Durgan went up the trail, passed the vine-hung house, and climbed the

highest eminence.

The cloud was composed of perpendicular layers of mist, the upper crests

of which rolled in ridge over ridge before the wind--a strong surge of

deepest foam. So white was each wave that only in its deep recess was

there a touch of shadow. The whiteness was dazzling; the silence

absolute.

The adjacent mountain-tops were black islands in mid-ocean.

The silence seemed a terrible thing to the cheated sense of sight. The

cloud breakers curled upon the sides of Deer, broke in fragments like

windblown froth, curled back, and broke again, as if lashing the rocks

and forest trees. Up the deep channel of the valley the waves rolled on

with a steady rhythm and fall of surf that should have filled the

mountain spaces with its thunder. Across the shining flood, against the

black shoulders of opposite shores, the same surf tossed and fell. Yet

there was no echo far or near, or murmur; only the hush of a phantom

world.

Durgan stood long on a portion of the mountain-top which was covered

with short, scrubby oak in young leaf, fascinated by the mighty movement

and intense silence.

A rustle came near him amongst the covert. He looked down and stroked

the head of one of Bertha's great dogs. He saw the mistress coming: she

was cloaked and hooded. It was the hood, perhaps, that hindered her

observing him till she was very near.

She uttered a cry of undisguised terror, throwing out her arm, as if to

ward off an expected blow.

This movement of defense, so instinctive, told Durgan more than any tale

of woe the lips could frame. He was confounded by such evidence of some

scene or scenes of past cruelty.

"Now, in the name of Heaven," he cried, "what do you fear? You know that

the dogs would allow no mortal to injure you or yours. Is it some

murderous spectre of whom you stand in dread?"

She regained a quiet pose, but seemed dazed by the unexpected fright.

"A murderous spectre! What do you mean? Why do you use that phrase, Mr.

Durgan?"

"The words are pure nonsense. I used them to show you how baseless your

fear appears. But I speak now in earnest to say that you ought not to

come out at night alone if you are thus alarmed."

"But I am perfectly safe with the dogs."

"Just so. Then why were you afraid?"

"I--I--in that shawl mistook you for----" She came to a final pause.

He remembered now that, to shield himself from the drenched verdure, he

had wrapped a camp blanket around him.

"Yes, I certainly cut a queer figure--like an old wife; but, pardon my

insistence, it is not good for any woman to be so terror-stricken as you

were just now. That you are safe from danger with the dogs I truly

think; but fear itself is injurious. If you are not safe from unruly

fears, why roam where you invite them? It is always possible to meet a

stranger."

"Oh, I am not afraid of travelers."

"Any shadow may assume a fantastic form."

"But I am really not afraid of odd appearances."

"Then why were you afraid of my blanket?"

But her caution returned. With inconsequence and a touch of reproach

she said: "You would rather have the mountain all to yourself, I

believe."

"I should be twice desolate. But that has nothing to do with my request

that you should keep where you not only are, but feel, safe."

"But if my fears are the result of my own imagination, why should any

place be better?"

"You are fencing with me now. If you could tell me what it is you

fear----"

She walked by his side as if thinking what she might answer him. "You

used a phrase when you just spoke--what put it into your mind?--which

perhaps expressed what I fear as literally as words can."

"What do you mean by endorsing such foolish words?"

"Your regard--your friendship, for us, is a very great comfort to us

both--the best boon that Providence, if there be a Providence, could

have sent us. Yet you have forced me to say what forfeits your regard."

"That would be impossible. Our regard for one another is based solidly

upon that touch of good principle which makes the whole world

neighbors."

"Ah! I am glad you say that. It is so comfortable to know your

benevolence does not depend on our worth. Long ago, and I would have

resented such an intimation from anyone; now it gives me the same sort

of comfort that a good fire does or, say, a good pudding."

She was regaining her spirits; but there was still a tense ring in her

voice which meant intense sincerity.

"Your regard for me has the same basis," said he; and added soon: "I am

greatly in earnest in what I say; you ought not to put yourself in the

path of fears you cannot master."

"I thank you for the advice. What exactly was it that happened to our

letters to-night?"

He ascertained that Adam had given his meagre message discreetly. He

could now have comforted her easily with half the truth, but he told all

briefly--in whose hands was the keeping of the curious fact of the blank

letters, and why he judged it comparatively safe.

Bertha pushed the hood from her head, as if she felt suffocated. She sat

down upon a fragment of rock on the verge of the hill, and they both

gazed at the silent rolling of the cloud beneath.

"Tricks are folly, and deserve detection," she said at length. "Silence

is the only noble form of concealment. Yet our friend, who is a lawyer,

told us that if we came here obviously as friendless as we are, rumor

would have been cruel. It would have worried our reputation as a dog

worries a rat. Every face we met would have been full of suspicion,

and--surely it is right to shun morbid conditions?"

Durgan stood uneasy. "People often drop almost all correspondence

through indolence," he suggested.

"My sister permitted the trick, I think, simply for my sake. She was

distressed by your seals and hearing that the letters had come open. I

shall be able to tell her it did not happen at the post-office."

"I should have thought your sister would have trusted her fate in God's

hands with perfect resignation."

"Yes, I think she does. She has great faith in God."

After another pause, he said: "You were so good as to ask me the other

day for advice; will you take an old man's advice now and go home to

bed? All things appear more reasonable by daylight, and the more you

tire yourself, the more you are likely to see the circumstances of life

in distorted shape."

She answered with an anger that leaped beyond her more tardy

self-control. "You know no more than my dogs do what I can and cannot

do, what it is drives me here to-night, or what it is that I fear."

"I beg your pardon."

Penitent in a moment, she said: "You are truly kind, Mr. Durgan. I am so

glad that we have a neighbor, and that he should be what you are."

"I wish, since you are in misery, that he could have been one in whom

you could confide, who could perhaps help."

She stood wrapping her cloak closer about her. "Let me be petulant when

I want to be petulant, mysterious when I must, tragic when I must, gay

when I can. Let my moods pass you as the winds pass. If you can do this

and preserve a secret, you will do more than any other human being could

or would." She waited a moment, and added: "I have trusted you from the

first to do this; I do not know why."

Chapter X

A SKELETON IN THE FIRE

The mountains now burst into midsummer. Bloom, color, and fragrance

reigned; also heat and drought. The cups of the tulip tree, the tassels

of the chestnut, lit the leafy canopy. The covert of azaleas blazed on

the open slopes in all shades of red and yellow. In every crevice by the

trickling streams rhododendrons lined the glades with garlands of purple

and white.

The hidden house of the sisters was embowered in climbing roses and the

passion flower. It was surrounded by gorgeous parterres, and the

tendrils of the porch vines hung still, or only fluttered at sundown.

There was no vapor at dawn or eve in gorge or on mountain-top. A dry

blue haze like wood smoke dulled light and shade in the myriad hills.

They looked like a vast perspectiveless painting by some prentice Titan,

who had ground his one color from the pale petals of the wild hydrangea.

Some clouds there were--ragged towers, tinted in the light browns and

pinks of seashells. They tottered round the far horizon in fantastic

trains, but came no nearer. The very azure of the sky was faded by the

heat of the sun.

All moss and low wild flowers had long withered; the earth under the

forest was hot and dry. The whole region basked, and from all the

valleys a louder and more ceaseless tinkling rose from the herds of pigs

and oxen who roamed for meagre provender.

One afternoon Durgan and his laborers heard a cry. It was the voice of

Adam. They heard him crash through the brushwood above them.

"Fire!" yelled Adam, and crashed back toward the summit house.

Durgan outran his men, and was relieved to find the evil not beyond hope

of redress. Smoke was issuing from one corner of the roof of the

dwelling-house; no flame as yet, but the roof was of shingle, like

tinder in the sun.

The ladies, with admirable skill and courage, had already organized

their forces--Adam pumping, Bertha and Eve stationed on the path from

the well, Miss Smith, the most agile, taking the bucket at the door and

running up the stair. Thither Durgan followed, leaving his men to

Bertha's command. The fire was smouldering between the ceiling of the

kitchen and a pile of papers and books which lay on the floor far under

the sloping roof of the low attic. Miss Smith had been wise enough to

move nothing. The solid parcels of periodicals kept out the air, and she

was dashing the water on the roof and floor.

With the added help smoke soon ceased. It remained to investigate the

cause of the fire, which was not obvious, to make sure that the rest of

the house was safe, and undo as far as possible the injury of the water,

which, spreading itself on the attic floor, had poured into the bedrooms

below.

While the negroes were carrying out the parcels of printed matter, wet

and charred, Durgan moved about in all the recesses of the house,

examining the walls, lifting wet furniture on to the sunny veranda roof,

and otherwise helping to modify the unaccustomed disorder.

While thus engaged, he realized how strongly had grown upon him a fancy

that these lonely women might be harboring some insane person, whose

escape and violence they might justly dread. He must now smile at

himself for thinking that any source of terror lurked here in visible

shape. As he followed Miss Smith from one simple room to another,

creeping under the very eaves of the roof and feeling the temperature of

every wall and shelf, he certainly assured himself that neither the

skeleton nor its closet was of material sort.

He was struck with the orderly and cheerful arrangement of the house,

with the self-control, speed, and good sense the sisters had displayed;

but most of all was he surprised that the excitement and effort had

unnerved them so little. When the hour for relaxation came, they

appeared neither talkative nor moody; they neither shed tears nor were

unusually cheerful. In his married life he had had some experience of

women's nerves. This calm, practical way of taking a narrow escape from

great loss roused his admiration.

Many bundles of papers were too much damaged to be worth keeping. Durgan

had a use for these in a stove his laborers used, and, after Miss Smith

had looked them over, they were carted down to the mine. Durgan sorted

them, storing some old magazines and more solid papers for future use.

He soon found the covers of an old book, tied together over a collection

of parchment envelopes. These in turn contained newspaper clippings

still legible. Each envelope had its contents marked outside; they were

the reports of a number of criminal trials, extending over a number of

years, cut from American, English, and other European papers. Durgan

was at once convinced that neither of the sisters could have been

interested in the collection, and, assuming it to be the work of some

dead relative, he reflected for the first time how rarely they spoke of

family ties. It was true that Bertha would sometimes say: "My dear

father would have enjoyed this view--would have liked this flower," or

"Dear papa would have said this or that." He remembered how her voice

would soften over these sacred memories, and remembered, too, how they

always came to her among the beauties of nature, never in domestic

surroundings. Such a father would scarcely have been so much interested

in annals of crime.

Sitting by the lamp in his hut, Durgan went over the envelopes. The

first was dated ten years before; it contained the notorious Claxton

trial, reported by the _New York Tribune_. The next was the case of the

Wadham pearls, from the London _Times_. Durgan was not familiar with the

case, and became interested in the story of the girl, very young and

beautiful, who, being above temptation of poverty and above reproach,

had been sentenced, on convincing evidence, for theft and perjury. The

common interest in these cases obviously was that in both the accused

was a gentlewoman, and the evidence overwhelming, altho chiefly

circumstantial. The cases that came after did not follow this thread of

connection. They were stories of such crimes as may almost be considered

accidental, in which respectable people fall a prey to unexpected

temptation or sudden mania. The last selection was from the _Galignani

Messenger_. It was the case of a parish priest, apparently a

_dilettante_ and esthetic personage of highly religious temperament, who

was condemned for having killed his sister with sudden brutality, and

who gave the apparently insane excuse that, seeing her in the dusk, he

had thought her a spirit, and been so terrified that he knew not what he

did. The date of this last story was only about three years after the

first.

Next day, when Bertha passed by on her horse, Durgan told her what he

had found.

"Oh, I am sure we don't want them," said she. "Burn them with the rest."

She was wearing a deep sun-bonnet; he could hardly see her face in its

shade.

Durgan had very naturally tried to fit the circumstances of any of these

stories of crime to a domestic tragedy which might have resulted in the

hiding of these sisters and in Bertha's fears; but none of them seemed

to meet the case, nor did any story he could devise.

Since the opening of the letters, and Bertha's words in the moonlight,

he had wondered more than once whether she believed in some ghostly

enemy. Durgan had been rudely jostled against such fantasies in his

domestic experience. His wife was nominally a spiritualist, and altho he

was inclined, from knowledge of her character, to suppose her faith more

a matter of convenience than of conviction, he had reason to think that

the man who had long dominated her life under the guise of a spiritual

instructor was, or had been, entirely convinced of his own power to

communicate with the spirit world. This man had believed himself to see

apparitions and hear voices. Durgan did not believe such experiences to

be spiritual, but gave more weight to the question of such a belief in

Bertha than if he had not already rubbed against the dupe of such a

monomania.

The subject was not a pleasant one, yet, in connection with this painful

theme, Durgan resolved to speak to Bertha in the hope of inducing

confidence and perhaps driving away her fears.

Chapter XI

THE MYSTERIOUS 'DOLPHUS

For a few days after the fire at the summit house some of the mountain

folk from far and near took occasion to ride up to the scene of the

excitement, "to visit with" the ladies, and hear that the bruit of the

matter had greatly magnified it. They were an idle, peaceful people; a

little thing diverted them.

The road by the mine was thus unusually gay; yet Durgan kept a more or

less jealous watch, and at last caught sight of the yellow negro who a

month before had visited Eve. He was dressed like a valet, in an odd

mixture of clothes from the wardrobes of a gentleman and a groom. His

features were small and regular; his long side-whiskers had an air of

fashion which did not conceal the symptoms of some chronic disease.

"Ho!" cried Durgan; "where are you going?"

The darkie stopped with a submissive air, almost cringing as one

accustomed to danger.

"What is your name?"

"'Dolphus, sir--'Dolphus Courthope."

"Courthope?"

"Yes, sir--from New Orleans. Mr. Courthope was very rich and had a great

many slaves." He spoke correctly, with a Northern accent.

"_You_ never saw slavery," said Durgan in scorn. "You have no right to

that name."

"No, sir; my father and mother gave me that name. They belonged to Mr.

Courthope."

"You were here before."

"Yes, sir; I came last month, but I went back to Hilyard. I came looking

for"--there was just a perceptible pause--"the Miss Smiths; but I

thought I'd come to the wrong place."

Durgan felt at a loss. On Adam's account he could have ordered the man

off, but he had no right to inquire into his errand to the Smiths.

"I'm a respectable boy, sir. I'm not going to do any harm. I've got

business." The darkie made this answer to Durgan's look of suspicion,

and spoke with apparent knowledge of the world and confidence in the

importance of his errand.

"See that you don't get into mischief!" With this curt dismissal Durgan

stepped back into his own place.

In some minutes, when he heard the watchdog barking above, he went up

the short foot-trail, expecting to reach the house with the negro, but

nearing it, saw no one without.

From the open windows he heard Bertha's voice raised in excitement. "I

will not leave you alone with him, Hermie, you need not ask it. He can

have nothing to say that I should not hear."

As Durgan drew nearer he heard Bertha again, this time with a sob of

distress in her voice. "I don't care what he says or does; I will brave

anything rather."

"Birdie, darling, you are very, very foolish!" Miss Smith's voice was

raised above her natural tone, but was much calmer.

Durgan's step was on the wooden verandah.

Doors and windows were all open to the summer heat. The sisters were

standing in the low sitting-room. The negro, hat in hand, stood in a

properly respectful attitude near the door. As before, his manner

suggested that he was a servant and had no aspiration beyond his sphere.

"I saw that fellow come up the road," said Durgan. "I do not know, of

course, what his errand is here; but I thought I ought to tell you that

Adam told me that he had got no regular job, and that he had found him

idling around a month ago with no apparent reason."

"Yes, sir; I was trying to discover from Adam's wife who it was that

lived up here; but she told me so many fixings out of her head about

these ladies that I come to the conclusion they wasn't the ladies I was

looking for. Miss Smith knows me, sir; and I've been very ill

lately--the doctor tells me I'm not long to live."

"Oh, you folks always think you're dying if you've got a cold. You're

begging, I see."

"Yes, sir; I was asking this lady to help me. I'm dying of consumption,

sir."

The man's manner was quiet enough. Durgan saw that both the sisters were

intensely excited. The elder had her emotion perfectly under control;

the younger looked almost fierce in the strain of some distress. What

surprised him was that his protection was equally unwelcome to both. He

could see, spite of their thanks, that, in trouble as they were, their

first desire now was that he should be gone.

"I do not trust this man," Durgan said. "I would rather stay within call

till you dismiss him."

"I'm all right, sir," said the darkie, again respectfully.

"He won't do us any harm," cried Bertha eagerly.

"I know who he is," said Miss Smith; "I know him to be unfortunate, Mr.

Durgan."

Yet Durgan saw dismay written on Bertha's face as surely as if they had

been attacked by open violence.

"Birdie, go out with Mr. Durgan and wait. You cannot be afraid to leave

me while he is near."

"I will not! I will not!" cried the younger, with more vehemence than

seemed necessary. So excited was she that she stamped her foot as she

spoke.

The tension was relieved by what seemed propriety on the stranger's

part.

"I'll go away, then," he said. "I don't want to make the young lady cry.

I sha'n't make you any trouble, ladies." He backed out to where Durgan

stood on the verandah.

"Wait, I'll give you something," said Miss Smith. "You ought to have

good food." She went to her desk, and came out giving him a folded

bank-note.

"Thank you, ma'am. Good-day." He went on a few steps and looked back, as

if expecting Durgan to conduct him off the premises.

"I'd be much obliged, sir, if you'd show me the short way--I'm weak,

sir."

Durgan indicated the trail, and followed to make sure that the negro

did not return through the bushes.

As they went, Durgan saw him unfold the bank-note and take from inside a

slip of written paper.

The mulatto went steadily down the mountain, without so much as looking

at the kitchen door, whence Eve was regarding him with eager interest.

Adam had been in the meadow at the time of this incident. When going

down to the post-office on his regular evening errand, he stopped to ask

Durgan if the "yaller boy" had any genuine errand. And on the way up he

stopped again, with trouble in his eyes, to give the information that

'Dolphus was spending the night there, and had suggested staying in this

salubrious spot for his health.

Durgan discovered that Adam and his own negro laborers regarded the

sickly and tawdry New Yorker as a peculiarly handsome specimen of their

race--quite the gentleman, and irresistibly attractive to any

negress--and that they agreed in denouncing his looks and manners solely

on account of the possibly vagrant affections of their own women.

Durgan believed the stranger's errand to be purely mercenary, and feared

that he was levying some sort of blackmail on Miss Smith. He feared,

too, that Eve was abetting.

Chapter XII

THE SECRET OF THE OAK

Next morning Bertha rode down to the village. Later, Durgan heard that

she had visited 'Dolphus, taken pains to get him a more comfortable

lodging, and left him a basket of sundry nourishing foods. More than

this, she had sat and talked with him in a friendly way for quite an

hour. When she passed up the hill again, Durgan observed that she

appeared calm and contented. She stopped to give him an invitation.

"My sister requires your attendance at supper o'clock this evening--no

excuse accepted."

"Why _this_ evening?" he asked.

"For two reasons. First, we are very grateful for your kindness

yesterday, and sister wanted to 'make up.' Secondly, she was making your

favorite chicken salad. Perhaps you think that is all one reason, but

the second part makes your acceptance imperative, as the salad will be

already made."

At sundown Durgan surrendered himself to the attractions of the

gracious sisters and the delicacies of their table.

When Adam and his wife had been dismissed, and the three were sitting on

the darkling verandah, watching the vermilion west, Miss Smith reminded

them that she had the bread to "set" for next day. Bertha and Durgan

were playing cards. She went through the dining-room to the kitchen at

the back of the house. She was not gone long, barely half an hour; the

sky had scarcely faded and the lamp but just been lit, when she came

back calm and gentle as ever.

Durgan was not calm. He felt his hand tremble as he brought from the

shelf a book which Bertha had asked for.

Ten minutes before a contention had arisen between himself and Bertha as

to the time of the moon's rising. To satisfy himself he had walked on

the soft grass as far as the gable of the house nearest his footpath.

Watching a moment in the shadow, he had heard a movement in the wood. As

the first moon-rays lit the gloom he saw the figure of a woman standing

on the low bough of an old oak and reaching a long arm toward an upper

branch. All the oaks here were stunted and easy to climb. That this was

Adam's wife he did not doubt, till, when she had lightly jumped down,

he discerned that she was returning attended by the dogs.

Durgan went back hastily lest Bertha should follow him. He reported only

the rising of the moon. A moment's thought convinced him that he had

been invited that evening for the purpose of keeping Bertha from the

knowledge of her sister's excursion. No one but Miss Smith could have

taken the dogs. He guessed that she had fulfilled some promise to the

boy, 'Dolphus--some promise given him on the slip of paper in the

bank-note, of putting money where he might seek it. Amazing as the

method resorted to was, Durgan felt no doubt that Miss Smith's action

was wise and right in her own eyes, but he was convinced that she was

putting herself in danger.

He lingered a little while, not knowing what to do. Then he spoke of

'Dolphus, taking occasion to explain the extreme distrust he felt

concerning the man and the degraded nature which so many of this class

had exhibited.

Both sisters seemed interested, but not greatly.

"Of course, we never thought whether we liked or disliked him," cried

Bertha. "That is not the way one thinks of men like that. We knew him

to have been unfortunate; and he is certainly very ill."

Miss Smith said, with a kind smile lighting up her face: "I think, Mr.

Durgan, you don't mean that even a 'thieving yellow nigger' hasn't an

immortal soul. Even if we can't get real religion into his mind, we can

show him kindness which must help him to believe in the mercy of

God--not" (she added in humble haste) "that I have ever been kind to

him, but I guess Birdie tried to be this morning."

Durgan was never far from the thought that the slave-owning race was

responsible for the very existence of a people who had been nourished

and multiplied in their homes for the sake of gain.

"Not only for the soul he has, but for the diseased body of him, for all

that he suffers and for all the injury he does--he and all his

class----" Durgan stopped. Both women were looking at him inquiringly.

"Before God I take my share of the blame and shame of it. But it is one

thing to be guilty, and another to know how to make reparation. Take an

illustration from the brood of snakes in the cliff here. In some slight

way you are responsible even for their existence, for you ought to have

had the parents killed. But you cannot benefit this brood by kindness;

you would wrong the world by protecting them. Believe me, I have been

reared among these people; I know the good and bad of them; a

rattlesnake is less dangerous than a man like this 'Dolphus. While I

would defend such fellows as Adam with my life, if need be, I believe

that I should do the best thing for the world in killing such creatures

as 'Dolphus and Adam's wife. While such as I ought to bear the

punishment of their sins and our own in the next world, the best

reparation we could make in this world would be to slaughter them."

Bertha had listened, fascinated by his most unusual earnestness of

manner. But at the last words she rose hastily and went out with averted

face. The tardy moon was now high. They saw her pacing the walk between

the tall sides of the garden beds.

Miss Smith watched her a moment with eyes of loving solicitude, then

said, "I'm sure you think you're speaking right down truth, Mr. Durgan,

but, you see, _I'm_ a Christian, and I b'lieve the Lord Jesus died for

'Dolphus and Eve, and not for rattlers. That makes all the difference."

"And yet it is a fact that, among the men and women for whom He died,

there are fires of evil which can only burn themselves out."

"All things are possible with God," said she.

He made no reply. He was always impressed by the spiritual strength of

this delicate woman. After a moment's pause it occurred to him to ask

simply--

"What is your sister frightened of--I mean at different times? She seems

to suffer from fears."

Slowly she raised her faded blue eyes to him with a look of deep sorrow

and puzzled inquiry. "I don't know. She won't talk to me about

it--Bertha won't."

"But surely----"

"Yes, I ought to know all she thinks, and be able to help her. Perhaps I

know there may be something I won't admit to myself. But, Mr. Durgan,

I'm real glad if she talks to you, for it's bad for her to be so

lonesome. She had a great shock once, Bertha had. If you can make her

talk to you, it'll do her good, Mr. Durgan."

Durgan obediently went out, and walked a few minutes with Bertha in the

further shadow of the garden.

"Why did you say it?" she asked. "How could you talk of it being good to

kill anyone?"

"My child!" he exclaimed, and then, more calmly, "you know well what I

meant. We all know perfectly that there is a leprosy of soul as well as

of body, for which on this side death we see no cure, of which even God

must see that the world would be well rid. We cannot act on our belief;

we leave it in His hands."

"Don't say it! Don't even hint at such a thing again!" In a moment she

exclaimed, in a voice of tears, "What does God care? Ah me! when I look

back and see my childhood--such high hope, such trustful prayer! Who

gave that heart of hope but the God of whom you speak? Who taught the

little soul the courage to trust and pray? And the hope is dead, the

courage crushed, the prayers--may my worst enemy be saved from such

answer, if answer there is, to prayer!"

She leaned her head against a tree, sobbing bitterly.

He supposed that 'Dolphus, bringing memories of a previous time, had

unnerved her.

"You had a happy childhood." He spoke soothingly, hardly with

interrogation.

She looked up fiercely. "You call God a father! It was my father who

taught me to pray. He--ah! you cannot think how beautiful he was, how

loving, how fond of all beautiful things! He taught me to pray for him.

He said that he could not pray for himself--that he had no faith. I

knelt by his knee every day, and prayed, as he taught me, for him and

for sister and for myself, but most of all for him. Then Hermie became

religious--dear, gentle, self-denying sister--and I cannot doubt that

she spent half her time in prayer for him because he wasn't converted."

"And he died?" asked Durgan.

"Yes; he died." It seemed to him that she shuddered.

"Had you ever anything to do with people who believe that the dead can

return to speak to us, or appear to us?"

She raised her head and looked at him with interest.

"I once knew a man," continued Durgan, "who believed in such things, who

saw such visions."

"Do you mean the man called Charlton Beardsley?"

Durgan was much surprised by hearing the name of his wife's protégé from

such a source. "I should not have supposed that you had ever even heard

his name. When he came to this country you must have been at school."

"I had just left school. Tell me what he was like. Was he bad or good?"

"I thought him simple, and much mistaken."

"Was he a wicked man?"

"I did not think him so then; I have not seen him since."

"He lives with Mrs. Durgan now, and is a great invalid. Surely you must

know if he is a wicked man?"

"Was it the Blounts who told you about him?"

"Yes--Mr. Blount mentioned it before you came"--he thought her words

came with hesitation--"but I have wanted to ask you. He was called a

mesmerist, too--do you believe that one man's will could possess another

person, and make that person do--well, any wicked thing?"

"There was some talk about what was called 'mesmerism' among Beardsley's

followers. He had nothing to do with it, I think. I do not believe in

one man controlling another to the extent you speak of. If it can

happen, it is so rare as not to be worth thought."

She sat silently thinking.

And he was egotistic enough to suppose that the unkindness of mentioning

his wife might now occur to her! But when she spoke again he saw that

she was only absorbed in her own thoughts.

"I suppose you are right." She sighed.

He said, "I am surprised to find your former life and mine have ever

touched so nearly as that we should have taken interest in the same man.

He was not a public medium--only known to a very few people. I spoke of

his seeing ghosts only because I wanted an opportunity to ask you if you

were frightened of ghosts."

"Oh, no; I am not. I have been better taught than that. Why should you

ask?"

"I see I should be ashamed of asking such a question."

"Ah! I understand. I talk so wildly at times, I have been so foolishly,

childishly talkative, that you think me capable of any folly. You cannot

despise me as I despise myself; but--oh, Mr. Durgan--at times I am very

unhappy. If I were not terribly afraid to die, my greatest fear would

sometimes be that I should live another day. It is not melodrama; it is

not hysterics; it is the plain, sober truth; but I am sorry that I have

let you know it."

Then, saying good-night, she added, "I have the best sister in the

world. I want to live bravely and be happy for her sake; and you can

best help me by forgetting what I have said and done. I had the best

father in the world: by the memory of your lost daughter, help me to be

worthy of him."

Chapter XIII

A SOB IN THE DARK

When Durgan had said good-night to the sisters, he made the warm

moonlight night an excuse for wandering. He sat down a little way off,

able to watch the lights in the house, and also the stunted oak into

whose keeping he had seen Miss Smith confide something. He felt pretty

sure that, as soon as the house was shut up for the night, the dogs as

usual within, 'Dolphus would appear to take money from the tree.

The house was closed; the curtained windows ceased to glow; but no one

climbed the tree.

The oaks were on rocky, windy ground, the old trees gnarled and

conspicuous above the denser growth of low shrub. The thought of spying

on any of Miss Smith's plans was revolting; his only wish was to see

that the negro did not approach the house. He felt at last compelled to

descend to this tree, to be sure that no one lurked near it. He had

marked it by a peculiar fork in its upper part, but he lost sight of

this fork on entering the thin wood, and moved about carefully for some

time before he found it, and then no one was to be seen. He stood

nonplused, wondering how long he ought to guard the house.

The white light fell on the small leaves and the gray moss and lichen

which covered the oak branches. It cast sharp interlacing shadows

beneath. The under thicket was of those small, aromatic azaleas which

can put forth their modest pink and white blossoms in sterile places. To

these bushes has been given a rare, sweet scent, to console them for

lack of splendor. Durgan's senses were lulled by this scent, by the soft

air and glamor of light. He stood a long while, not unwillingly, intent

upon every sight and sound. No hint of any human presence came near him.

It seemed to him at length that he heard steps a long way down the hill

on the cart-road. He thought he heard voices.

Now he felt sure the negro was coming, and he was exceedingly angry to

believe that Eve was with him. Who else could be there? He shuddered to

think that this false, soulless creature knew every door and window in

the house, every soft place in the hearts of her mistresses, perhaps

every fear they entertained. With her to help, and with some prior

knowledge of the sisters' secret as the basis of his operations, what

tortures might not this villain inflict, what robbery might he not

commit, without fear of accusation? Durgan felt angry with Eve; the

other only roused his contempt. With real rage, a passion strong in his

Southern nature, he slipped silently out, ready to confront the two.

But now again there was silence. He could hear nothing. At every turn

the lone beauty of the place met him like a benediction. He waited.

There was nothing--no one.

Then--ah, what was that sound? what could it be--like a gasp or sigh,

far away or near? One soft but terrible sob. That was all; but Durgan

felt his spirit quail. His rage was gone; he did not notice its absence.

The moments in which he listened seemed long, but almost instantly he

found himself wondering if he had really heard anything at all. He went

as quickly and quietly as he could, by the trail and the mine, to the

road below, and saw 'Dolphus some way beneath, walking slowly, not up

but down the road. The casual aspect of his figure, the slight

consumptive cough, effaced the weird sensation of a minute before.

"Hi!" cried Durgan.

Bertha's terriers in the barn barked cheerfully in answer to his

well-known voice. The mountain echoed a moment.

'Dolphus stood, hat in hand. A fit of coughing seized him. Durgan went

down the road.

"What are you doing here?"

"Trapping for coon, sir."

"Not coon."

"Yes, sir; I was prospecting for a likely place to set a trap. The

gentleman I've been servant to wrote and said he'd pay me for coon

skins."

"You lie."

"Yes, sir."

He stood still submissively. The full light of the moon fell on him

between the shadows of the high and drooping trees. The dust of the road

absorbed and partly returned the pearly light. The sylvan beauty of this

sheltered bank was all around. What a sorry and absurd figure the

mulatto made! His silky hair, parted in the middle and much oiled,

received also the glint of the moon. His long side-whiskers hung to his

shoulders; his false jewelry flashed. This man, whose shirt-fronts and

manners were already the envy of darkydom in Deer Cove, looked indeed so

pitiful an object in these rich surroundings, that Durgan felt that he

had overrated his power for mischief.

"I said you lied. What do you mean by saying 'yes'?"

"I would not contradict you, sir. Reckon I lied. I'm a dying man, sir;

you could knock me down with a straw, sir."

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to do a service for Miss Smith. She's a holy one, sir. When I

found I wasn't long to live, I thought I oughter serve her if I could."

"Serve her? You are trying some sort of trick to get money."

"Miss Smith'll see that I'm comfortable as long as I live, sir. That's

all I want."

"You're trying some game to enrich yourself, and you've got Adam's wife

helping you."

'Dolphus laughed out; it was a weak, hysterical giggle. "Beg pardon,

sir, but the woman ain't in it. Beg pardon, I can't help laughing, sir.

Reckon good, religious ladies would be a sight better off without that

thieving yaller girl waiting on them."

He laughed weakly till he coughed again.

Durgan, revolted beyond measure, swore within himself that Eve should

never pollute the house of the sisters by entering it again.

"Get home. Get out of my sight. If you come out here again I'll have the

General turn you out of the district."

He spoke as to a dog, but the dog did not turn and run. He leaned

against a tree out of sheer weakness, but faced his enemy steadily.

"No, sir; you can't frighten me, 'cause I'm a dying man, anyway. Miss

Smith, she'll speak to the General, and to the Almighty too, for me.

I'll die easier 'cause I know she will." His voice had grown thin, and

now vibrated with excitement. "I've just got one thing more to say, sir.

You'll see I'm not frightened of you when I say it. If you knew the sort

o' wife you've got, sir, and what she's been hiding, you'd look after

her better than you do; and if you value your salvation, you'll stand by

the pious little lady on the hill; you'll be happier when you come to

die."

"Look here, my good fellow; you're very ill, I see; you're delirious. Go

home and get to bed."

"Yes, sir, I'll go. But study on what I've said, sir; for it's gospel

truth, as I'm a dying man."

"Can you manage to go alone? Shall I wake Adam to help you home?"

'Dolphus laughed again. "No, don't wake Adam, sir. I'll go safer alone."

Durgan, now convinced that hectic fever had produced delirium, went as

far as Adam's cabin to consult him. To his surprise, he found it empty.

Chapter XIV

THE GOING OUT OF EVE

When the next day was breaking, Durgan wakened to the sound of footsteps

and loud lamenting. Adam, weeping like a heart-broken schoolboy, in

terrified haste stumbled into the door of the hut.

"Marse Neil, suh, I've been huntin' her the whole night long, an' I've

found her done dead. Marsa, come, for de good Lord's sake! She's lyin'

all by herself on de ground. Oh, oh, my pore gal; my pore honey!"

He was now running away again, and Durgan was following. In the thick of

the forest, in a hollow of coarse fern, lay the pretty Eve--a bronze

figure of exquisite workmanship. One small dark wound was seen above her

heart, where the torn muslin of her bodice revealed the beautiful

rounding of neck and breast. She lay with her face upturned, and death's

seal of peace upon her lips. Big Adam knelt sobbing by her side, trying

to close the fringed eyelids, which allowed one crescent line of the

velvet eye to be seen.

"Adam, tell me what you know." Durgan's imperious tone was a needed

tonic.

The big negro drew himself up and controlled his sobs. With a gesture

toward the dead of great simplicity, he said, "I know nuthin',

marsa--nuthin' but this! Miss Smith, she sen' me last night with a

lettah for the Gen'ral. The hoss los' a shoe, so I leave him an' walk. I

come home very late, near middle of night, an' I meet that yaller boy,

all up an' dressed, in the Cove. So I run home, an' my poor gal was gone

from the cabin. I'se been lookin' for her the whole night through till I

foun' her. Oh, oh! Marse Neil! my pore, pore gal!" He broke down again

in tears, casting himself beside the corpse on the ground.

Durgan looked at the two with indescribable sorrow. How he had desired

to have this woman out of the way--Adam free from his thraldom, the

sisters from their mischief-making! Now! There is naught on earth can

grieve the heart of the living like the face of the dead.

The dawn brightened; the birds sang peans of joy; the gay wind danced;

and over the woman who had been so light and winsome a part of

yesterday's life a rigid chill had crept, which made her to-day a part

only of the dark cold earth. Durgan stood with head bowed. He remembered

the day his father had bought her, a babe with her mother, to save them

from a darker fate. In this dead body was the blood of fathers who,

calling themselves American gentlemen, had, one generation after

another, sold their own children as slaves. What chance had she to have

in her nerve or fibre that could vibrate to any sense of good? If her

spirit had now passed to plead at the bar of some great judgment-hall,

on whose head must the doom of her transgressions fall?

At length he knelt on one knee and laid his hand on Adam's head. "Don't

cry so! Oh, Adam; you've got your old master's son to love, you big

nigger. I couldn't do without you. You'll kill yourself crying for the

poor girl like that."

Adam struggled like a manful child, and subdued his grief in order to

show how deep was his gratitude for this kindness.

"We were both reared in the same old place, Adam. You'll not forget that

I'm lonely in the world now, too, and a poor working man like

yourself--oh, Adam!"

Adam rose up. "This nigger will try and bear up an' not shame you, Marse

Neil. This nigger will never forget your kindness this day, Marse Neil,

suh."

Since seeing that the woman was dead, Durgan had assumed that the low,

soft sob which had chilled his heart the night before was nothing more

than Eve's death groan. It seemed apparent that she had been stabbed to

the heart too suddenly to have had more than a moment's consciousness of

death. He supposed that 'Dolphus had perhaps been watched and waylaid by

Eve, and in a half-delirious moment had thus disposed of her to avoid

sharing the money he was seeking.

Durgan took his bearings to find out where he now was, and climbed to

catch sight of the tree by which he had watched the evening before. But

as soon as he could see the upper part of the hill he perceived that it

was by no means sure such a sound could have been heard so far. This

annoyed him, as he wished to send his testimony at once to the

magistrate at Hilyard. When he remembered how 'Dolphus had laughed at

the mention of Eve, how he had raved about his innocent intentions, and

even ventured to slander Mrs. Durgan, of whose existence it would seem

he could only know through Eve's gossip, Durgan felt persuaded of his

dangerous mental state, and that there was no safety for the community

until this poor irresponsible creature was in confinement. The cool

daring of offering advice on his own domestic affairs was what, above

all, convinced Durgan of his delirious condition.

He wrote a statement for the magistrate, giving such evidence as he

could, and his belief that 'Dolphus was the only person within reach of

the place where the crime was committed.

Leaving Adam to watch beside his dead, Durgan himself went to Deer Cove,

sent one of his laborers to Hilyard and the other to Blount's, set a

guard over the house where 'Dolphus slept, and roused the village to

Adam's aid.

It was not until he had done all he could in the interests of justice

and humanity, and was again returning to his solitary hut, that it

struck him for the first time how strange it was that this sorrowful

thing should occur within the radius of Bertha's unaccountable terrors,

that a cruel, crafty stroke, such as she would appear to dread, had

actually been struck within the purlieus of her hiding-place.

Chapter XV

THE QUESTION OF GUILT

When Durgan reached the stone platform of the mine, Bertha came out to

meet him. She had apparently been sitting alone on some rock in the

lateral cutting. She was dressed for riding; her face was quite pale,

and had a strength and sternness in it that alarmed him.

"I must go at once to Hilyard. I have come to--have you not heard?"

"'Tis an affair of niggers," said he; "they are always knifing one

another."

"Oh, no, no! Do you not understand at all? Whom do you suppose to be

guilty?"

"'Dolphus, of course."

"Mr. Durgan, for the sake of all that is true and just, and for our

sakes, if you will, do not breathe such a thought to anyone. What has

happened is, perhaps, what I have feared for years--what I have labored

for years to prevent. May God forgive me if I have risked too much. But

the worst thing that can be done--the worst for us--would be to accuse

_him_."

"My dear Miss Bertha, you cannot possibly have anything to do with this

sad affair?"

"Oh, you do not know! you do not know! Do not contradict me. Only

believe me that there is more in this than you know. I fear I have done

a terrible wrong in concealment, but I did it for the best. I hoped----"

"I am quite sure that 'Dolphus killed the woman."

"No! No! Alas! I am afraid I know too well who did. And I am so far yet

from knowing what I ought to do that I dare not tell you more. I'm

afraid that I should say too much or too little. But if you will do what

I ask, I think no harm will come if I go to Hilyard without saying more

than this."

"Tell me why you are going to Hilyard."

"I'm going to telegraph for our lawyer, Mr. Alden. He must come at once.

I intend to say in Deer that I am going to fetch Adam's mother, who

lives there; but I'm really going for the other purpose."

"I cannot endure that you should mix yourself up in this affair! I am

sure that 'Dolphus did it. I caught him near the spot. He is very ill;

he was raving with fever, I think. But I will not argue with you. The

ride may do you good."

"Will you do what I am going to ask?"

"Tell me what it is."

She had schooled herself to rapid work and action; her thought was quite

clear. "I want you to be kind enough to saddle my horse and bring him

down to me. I want you to explain to my sister that I have no time to go

back to the house, and to tell her that there is no woman who can come

to work for us to-day. I want you to speak very gently to her, for she

is so distressed; but you must not tell her that I spoke of the lawyer.

And first, last, and above all, Mr. Durgan, I want you to be on your

guard against an enemy. Going up to our house, and coming back, and

wherever you are till I come home, be on your guard. If you will promise

to do this you will be safe, and I can do my part with some composure."

Durgan looked at her, speechless with sheer astonishment. Manlike, he

found the expense involved in bringing a notable lawyer a two days'

journey, and into this desolate height, a greater proof that she had

some substantial reason for alarm than any as yet offered him.

"Promise me," she said. She was beyond all mood of tears or impatient

excitement. She was only resolute.

He went up the hill to do her bidding, and at first found himself

looking to right and left in the bushes before him, as he formerly

looked upon the ground for snakes.

Miss Smith came into the front room at his knock. She was tremulous and

tearful. After expressing his sympathy for the shock which her

housemaid's sudden death must have given, he asked her if she thought

Bertha well enough to ride alone.

"It sometimes does her good to have a right down long ride, doesn't it,

Mr. Durgan? I don't quite understand the way she's feeling about this

dreadful thing, but I guess she'll be safe enough riding. She's promised

me to go to our good friend Mrs. Moore, at Hilyard. I don't see as the

ride can do her any harm."

"If you think so," he said, "I'll saddle the horse."

But Miss Smith had something else to say. "Do you think Adam did it, Mr.

Durgan? It seems dreadful to think such a thing of our good Adam, but I

always feel that a man who can strike a woman might do almost any mean,

bad thing."

Durgan felt to the full the hopelessness of explaining to a woman so

ignorant of colored folk as was Miss Smith, the kindness of Adam's

discipline. He could only assure her of his present innocence.

"You don't think, Mr. Durgan, that it could have been----" Her face was

very troubled.

"Yes; I suppose it was 'Dolphus," said Durgan. "I found him near the

spot last night. He was delirious with fever, I think, and coughing

badly. It's not safe to leave him at large. They'll give him medical

attendance in jail. It's not likely he'll live to be hanged. I have sent

what evidence I have against him to Hilyard; I could not do otherwise."

He said this in a tentative way, and found that Miss Smith did not share

her sister's belief that 'Dolphus was not guilty. She only sighed deeply

and said--

"The good Lord alone knows how to be just, Mr. Durgan; but I suppose the

law comes as near as it can."

"Have you any evidence concerning his former character?"

"No; I don't know anything about his character. I guess you've done just

right, Mr. Durgan. I'm asking the Lord to make known whatever ought to

be made known, and to hide whatever ought to be hidden, and to bless us

all. I guess that's about the best prayer I can think of. But I don't

mind telling you that 'twould be a dreadful trial to me or Birdie to be

obliged to give any evidence. And I can say before God that we neither

of us know anything about him that could have any bearing on this

matter."

"You may depend upon me; I'll keep you out of it if I can. It's only

what happens constantly in a niggers' brawl."

His heart went out with more and more cordiality to the upright, tearful

little lady, who, in the thick of troubles, seemed by her very life to

point to God, as the church spire seems to point to heaven above the

city's smoke.

When leading off the saddled horse he stopped for a moment and looked

back with irresistible curiosity, thinking of the conflicting aspects of

the life that centered here.

The grass of the foreground lay patterned with the graceful shadows of

acacia boughs. Between them he saw the low gray house, about which the

luxuriance of flowers made the only confusion. Hens were pecking and

dogs basking in the neat kitchen yard; and Miss Smith, in default of a

servant, was quietly sweeping the kitchen porch. The place was like a

dream of home. "Surely," he said to himself, "if the angel of peace

could ever seek an earthly dwelling, she might well alight here and

fold her wings."

He led the horse down the trail with brows knit, and in his mind the

intention of further remonstrance with Bertha; but she mounted and rode

away without a moment's delay.

Book II